“Woah! It's like Spotify but for academic articles.”

Instant Access to Thousands of Journals for just $40/month

Commentary on Stack (1995)

GOETTING,ANN
Commentary on Stack (1995)
COMMENTARY ON STACK (1995) ANN GOETTING Western Kentucky University Social science researchers should be applauded when their work addresses community needs, especially needs of life-or-death conse- quence. Stack's (1995) efforts to identify a strategy for homicide reduction through publicized executions might appear to demonstrate promise, and therefore, those efforts are worthy of our attention. He is to be commended for refining his work to include a search for population categories that may be particularly responsive to publi- cized executions. Such epidemiological considerations are critical to prevention and are therefore the nucleus of the public health agenda. Using regression analyses, Stack reported a small, but statistically significant decline in homicide for Caucasians following publicized executions. No change was observed among African Americans. Armed with these data, he suggested that African Americans remain unaffected by publicized executions because of their "homicide- producing life circumstances" and because of their lower stake in conformity. In this commentary, I would like to raise several concerns with the study's conceptualization and design, as well as with Stack's interpre- tation of his results. First, one may question his use of the victim's race as a proxy for the offender's race. Stack's research question relates to
http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.pngCriminal Justice and BehaviorSAGEhttp://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/commentary-on-stack-1995-4tC4fvb3W8

Commentary on Stack (1995)

Abstract

COMMENTARY ON STACK (1995) ANN GOETTING Western Kentucky University Social science researchers should be applauded when their work addresses community needs, especially needs of life-or-death conse- quence. Stack's (1995) efforts to identify a strategy for homicide reduction through publicized executions might appear to demonstrate promise, and therefore, those efforts are worthy of our attention. He is to be commended for refining his work to include a search for population categories that may be particularly responsive to publi- cized executions. Such epidemiological considerations are critical to prevention and are therefore the nucleus of the public health agenda. Using regression analyses, Stack reported a small, but statistically significant decline in homicide for Caucasians following publicized executions. No change was observed among African Americans. Armed with these data, he suggested that African Americans remain unaffected by publicized executions because of their "homicide- producing life circumstances" and because of their lower stake in conformity. In this commentary, I would like to raise several concerns with the study's conceptualization and design, as well as with Stack's interpre- tation of his results. First, one may question his use of the victim's race as a proxy for the offender's race. Stack's research question relates to

Loading next page...

/lp/sage/commentary-on-stack-1995-4tC4fvb3W8

Sorry, we don't have permission to share this article on DeepDyve,
but here are related articles that you can start reading right now: